War of Attrition
by Thessaly
Summary: Sirius was sometimes struck with the genius that had made his family infamous. Well, a brand thereof. It would never have occurred to, for example, Phineus Nigellus to vanish all the girls' toilets. Lily Evans is not amused. Marauding silliness ensues.


**(A/N)** _Character and setting is not mine. Well, except for the people you don't recognize - most of the girls are mine because Lily needed allies. Side note: Harry clearly inherited his tendency to speak in all capitals from his mother. Oh, and there are various quotations throughout that aren't mine. If you with to remark upon them, I will tell you how clever you are. Don't forget to feed the author. _

Remus Lupin, eyes glinting with the possibility of sesquipedalian mischief, sat down on one of the overstuffed chairs. "Padfoot, mate," he said to his friend. "You look a bit - "

"Don't say it." Sirius Black turned a ferocious glare on the other boy. "Just. Don't. Say. It."

Remus stretched his legs out and surveyed his shoes, then took a sidelong glance at Sirius. "I was _going_ to say 'pensive' but since you mention it… No, I won't say it, but you'll always know that I _thought_ it and could have said it."

"What you are thinking," said Sirius with aplomb, "has long since ceased to concern me. And if I had a Knut for every time you've made a pun on my name, or even _thought_ of making a pun on my name, I'd be richer than Potter."

"You already are richer than Potter."

"I got cut out of the will," Sirius pointed out, with an elaborately insouciant shrug. "Newest development. I haven't a penny to call my own."

"My poor child," said Remus. "At least you can get a job if you want one."

"Shut it."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, communing with the fire. Finally Remus picked up the conversation again. "I am sorry. Is it – I mean, is the family stuff going all right?"

The sympathetic look in his eyes was a little too much to handle. "Damnation, Mooney, I don't need pity!" the other boy snapped. "No; that's all been sorted as much as possible. No." He sat up straighter. "Has it occurred to you, oh wise one, that it is October - "

"Why, yes it has, actually," interjected Remus.

" – and that we have done absolutely _nothing_ interesting this year. We barely deserve to be called Marauders."

" Your point?"

"The Prefect is not going to turn in his friends to the authorities," Sirius smirked. He glanced at his friend "And don't give me that look, Mooney."

"What look?"

"_That_ look. The one where your eyes glaze over and I can see the little wheels in your head turning and you thinking, _oh no, we can't do that, we'll get in trouble_."

"Oh, that look." Remus sighed. "Sirius, don't you think we might be a little old for that kind of thing?"

"What are you, ninety? Hell, no."

Remus drummed his fingers on the table. "The Sixth Year Boy Prefect won't turn us in, but the Girl Prefect will."

"I'm not afraid of Evans."

"I don't believe you." After a moment Sirius's eyes dropped.

"All right, fine. I am. But that doesn't stop the necessity of mischief being made."

"Sirius, you nearly got us all _expelled_ two years ago." Remus bit his bottom lip. "And McGonagall will have another go at us. I mean, remember the whole Potions mess last year?"

Sirius bristled. "Oi, that was not my fault." Remus raised an eyebrow. "Oh, all right, some of it was. Look, McGonagall yells at all of us."

"It's worse if you're a Prefect." Remus could still remember the Scottish inflections in her voice sliding over the words _disgusting display_ with a sort of horrified relish. "Trust me." He shrugged. "Why am I even bothering? You don't listen when people go after you anyway." Sirius snickered. Remus sighed and gave in, as his friend probably had guessed he would. "All right. What did you have in mind?"

Sirius held out the book he had been reading. "Mooney, wonderful Mooney, what is this?"

"It appears to be a map of the castle," said Remus. "Very detailed too. And it appears that you have circled all the lavatories in ink," he looked up reprovingly, "which you _shouldn't_ do in a library book." Remus paused. His face changed. "Oh, dear sweet Merlin - "

"No, just Sirius will do."

" – you can't be thinking what I think you're thinking?"

"Yes, I think I am thinking what you think I'm thinking."

Remus's linguistically-tuned brain winced. "All right then. I concede. And this could work. Where are James and Peter?"

"Library, I should think."

"Right." Remus looked at the book again. "What kind of plan do you have?"

"I thought I'd talk to you lot first."

"I thought so. Um," Remus tapped a finger on the table. "Basic Unplottable charm, basic Invisibility charm…does Filch know where all the loos are?"

"He can't keep track of seven secret passages; I should think he'd be completely stumped by almost a hundred toilets."

Remus looked up, face alight. "You know, this is going to be _much_ easier than I anticipated."

The found the others in the library and showed them Sirius's map. Then they quartered the library and looked for every copy of a castle map they could find. It took until nearly teatime, but staggering out of the library under a pile of books each, they decided it was the beginning of a job well done.

---

Lily Evans was not particularly good at Divination, but she woke that specific Tuesday with a premonition that today was going to be a very, very bad day. She was the first one up in the sixth year girls' room that morning, an unusual occurrence. Sophronisbe Fairfax was curled up in a ball, ready to wake at exactly seven, which she did every day infallibly. Without, curse her, the aid of an alarm clock. The other occupant of the room, Aurelia Fitzgerald, would sleep until someone forcefully removed her from bed with or without such aids as cold water and Freezing charms.

Lily ducked through her curtains, pulled her robe over her shoulders, and grabbed her toothbrush and bath kit. Out the door, down half a flight to the first landing, round the corner, turn left to find – a blank wall? Lily rubbed her forehead. Surely she wasn't so tired that she'd gotten lost on the way to the toilet? She touched the wall, tapped on it, retraced her steps, and discovered two things to be entirely, unmistakably true. The first was that she had gone the right way to the toilets. The second was that they were not where they should be.

She flounced to the Prefects' toilet to discover it also was not there. With the beginnings of a headache, she sat down on the nearest flight of stairs, and pondered. She needed a bath. She couldn't _find_ a bathroom. Well, no. She couldn't find any of the girls' toilets. _I haven't tried the boys'_. She got up and went to the door for the male Prefects' toilet and gave it the password – it was amazing what you could get out of Lupin if you went about it the right way – hoping it either wasn't there, or wasn't occupied.

Fortunately, it was both present and empty. Lily had the fastest bath of her life and emerged feeling somewhat better (the girls had better bubble-bath, but the tub here was definitely bigger. Lily wasn't sure whether it was appropriate compensation or not). After all, Hogwarts was unpredictable; the problem might just be limited to her. Unfortunately, the feeling was not destined to last long, and she arrived back at Gryffindor Tower to find pandemonium had broken loose. A group of tearful first-year girls was sitting in the common room sniffling. Another group of third-years in their bathrobes were complaining. Other people, mostly girls, milled. Standing in the doorway, Lily's headache hit with shattering force and she reacted automatically. She put her hands on her hips and yelled, "POTTER!"

"Yes?" James Potter, dressed, clean, and perfectly affable, stepped out of the crowd. "That's quite a nice robe, if you don't mind my mentioning it, Evans."

She advanced on him, trying to ignore the fact that she was wearing a pink bathrobe with a duck on the pocket. It clashed with her hair abominably, and he knew it. "If my bathrobe bothers you so much, Potter, pretend its not there."

"Oh, I _am_," said Potter, and waggled his eyebrows.

Lily growled. "What have you DONE with the blasted TOILETS?"

"Language, Evans, language," he said sweetly. "I have no idea what you're talking about. What if we got together to discuss it?"

"No, we will NOT be getting together to discuss anything. I want to know what you've sodding done with the sodding TOILETS!"

The crowd was, if anything, growing. It seemed that all of Gryffindor tower had turned out to see Evans have a go at Potter. For seven in the morning, it was downright unheard-of.

"Evans, calm down."

"Oh, Lord, another one," said Lily unsoothed. "Black, I am not going to calm down! Tell Potter to explain what he's doing with the toilets!"

Sirius turned to his friend with a perfectly straight face and said experimentally, "Potter, what have you done with the toilets? Now there's a phrase I never thought I'd be saying to anyone." James snorted, coughed, and Sirius closed a hand on Lily's shoulder.

"Please, Evans, don't dismember him," said Remus, drifting beside her other shoulder. "You can't possibly blame him for loosing the loos." He smirked. Amazing how those four rubbed off on each other; you would have thought the trademark Black smirk would remain, well, trademark, but it seemed to be contagious.

She groaned. "If that's all you're going to say, Lupin, I'm not going to talk to you."

"I think you'll find that it's only the girls' toilets that have gone missing," Pettigrew – where had _he_ come from? – added, charitably.

Usually, Lily could get on with Remus Lupin and even Peter Pettigrew. This time, though, they were clearly in league with the Other Side. "Oh, really? And it's you lot telling me this; I wonder why _that_ could be." With an effort, she forced herself not to try to curse all four of them into next Wednesday. There were _four _of them, after all; probably one too many, especially given she studied Charms with one of them. She pulled her wand out of the bathrobe pocket, trying to ignore the snickers at the duck. "_Sonorus_. Girls, I'm really sorry about all this; I promise you, we'll get it sorted. For the time being, though, I think you should feel free to use the boy's toilets." She held up her hand to forestall the muttering outrage. "I know, I know, it's pretty icky."

"Evans," said Madge Holder in fourth year, "Have you been _in_ the boys' dorm toilets?"

"No, actually, I haven't," said Lily dryly. Everybody laughed and Madge flushed. "It wasn't like _that_," she said fiercely. "I got lost."

"I wonder who helped her get lost?" said someone else.

Madge put her chin up. "It's just that they stink. I mean, they're absolutely revolting. I'm not going in there." There were murmurs of agreement from the crowd.

Lily sighed. _Oh, Lord._ She put her hand over her wand for a moment of private conversation. "Alice?"

Alice MacIntyre, Seventh year Girl Prefect, pushed mousy brown hair away from her round face and said, nervously, "Yes?"

"Do you think it would be all right if we told them the password for the male Prefects' toilet on this floor? It's perfectly clean; I was in there this morning."

Alice grinned faintly. "Yes," she said. "I think that would be a very good idea, actually."

"Emma?" The fifth year Girl Prefect nodded.

"Excellent." Lily removed her hand from the wand and said, "Girls, stay here please. Boys, I'd like you to leave." The crowd shifted, swelled, and, reluctantly, filed out.

---

Lily, dressed but still headache-stricken, sat at the emergency Prefects' meeting and fidgeted. Head Boy Brent Clearwater III, who was mad about his studies and appeared not to notice the rest of the world, seemed unconcerned. _Of course not_, Lily scribbled in the margin of the notes she was trying to revise. _His toilet is still there_. She tilted the paper. Stazzi Starett, the Ravenclaw sixth year Prefect, grinned and wrote, _Besides, Hero said to leave it alone._

Lily sighed. Hero Portsmouth-Cunningham was also a Ravenclaw, and Head Girl. Lily couldn't stand her. She put up her hand. Hero pushed a perfect brown curl out of her eyes. "Yeeeeys, Evans?" The voice was remarkably unenthusiastic.

"I know who's responsible. It was Potter and Black again, I'm positive."

The Head Girl gave a long-suffering sigh accompanied by a very exaggerated eye-roll. "_Pleas-ah_, Evans," she said. "No more paranoid conspiracy theories, yeh?" Hero Portsmouth-Cunningham was the sort of person who said "gel" instead of "girl" and tacked on an affected "yeh" to most of her clauses. Lily, middle-class Surrey to the bone, could never hear her speak without wanting to strangle her Head Girl just tightly enough that her stupid posh public-school accent would evaporate into something normal-sounding. Lily put her hand down and didn't bother answering. Hero lifted one shaped eyebrow, then returned to telling them what to do about the lack of toilets.

_Hmph_, thought Lily. _When I'm Head Girl, things are going to be run much differently._ She wasn't sure when she'd begun imagining herself as Head Girl in such positive tones, but she suspected it had something to do with the beginning of the Portsmouth-Cunningham tenure. Now she watched the other Prefects in the room, choosing allies. The boys, obviously, were useless. She'd seen Lupin give a Black-like smirk when she put her hand up. She was _very_ disappointed in him. But the girls…Ah, perhaps there was hope.

Next to her was Stazzi, who was obviously in. Nuala O'Dwyer, the sixth year Hufflepuff Prefect, was stunningly beautiful and astoundingly stupid. She probably do what she was told. Gwen Lennox, the Slytherin Prefect, was completely opaque; not a bad sort, really, but mysterious. They would help – well, except for Lennox, maybe – and probably the other two Gryffindors; shy Alice and quirky Emma. And Fitz and Sophie would want play; they always did. _Would Bishop fancy some pranker-squashing?_ Lily scribbled.

Stazzi glanced over at her fifth year Prefect who was tapping her fingernails on the table. _Probably_. Lily picked up the quill and wrote, _Brilliant. Ask her if she wants to meet up in the second-floor lounge at lunch. Pass this around, would you?_ Stazzi nodded.

---

"Mr. Black, Mr. Potter," said Professor McGonagall, facing her two rambunctious students from over the top of her desk. "I had rather hoped we were past all this silliness."

"So had I, Professor," said Sirius.

McGonagall, of long practice, ignored him. "Miss Evans seems convinced that you two are responsible for the latest," she paused and sniffed, "_development_ in the castle."

"Dear me," said James. "I'm sorry, Professor. I really think Evans is taking her Prefecting duties a little too strongly. I mean, she's never liked us, so I suppose it might make sense that she would blame us first, but…" he trailed off delicately.

"…it would be ridiculous, and _entirely_ false, to accuse us of being totally, completely responsible for the vanishing toilets," said Sirius.

McGonagall eyed them both. "That will do, gentlemen. Thank you for being so frank with me. You may go."

A safe distance down the corridor they stopped holding in their laughter. "Well, it's true," said Sirius when he could speak again. "We weren't totally, completely responsible. And she didn't accuse us of being _somewhat_ responsible." He looked virtuous. "I _never_ lie to the teachers."

---

Two days went by. Lily lost count of the number of girls who came up to her in the hall asking where the nearest toilet was. Although by the third day, she'd learned quite a few of them out of necessity. That was the odd thing; she had _tried_ to look them up, but all the books with castle maps in them seemed to be checked out. It was the sort of coincidence she was used to dealing with, es_pe_cially when Black, Potter, Lupin, and Pettigrew were involved. In search of more evidence, Lily made an effort to be very sweet and helpful to the staff. She ran errands while they had toilet-related meetings, she followed them around the castle holding things, and generally made herself indispensable.

They were invisible. "Well, they can't have been vanished," said McGonagall sourly. "The time-space matrix of the castle shouldn't allow the horizontal double-angle turn in first place and…"

"Minerva," said Slug, panting beside the deputy head, "I admire you a great deal, but sometimes I wish you could speak English instead of Wizarding jargon."

McGonagall looked down at her colleague and said severely, "They couldn't have been vanished because there's nowhere for them to _go_."

"Ah," said the Potions master.

"They are also," said McGonagall, the tone of her voice dropping several degrees, "Unplottable. And that's not an easy charm."

_And I know who knows it_, thought Lily Evans. _Well, aside from me…oh, Remus Lupin, you are going to pay for this_. She started to think.

---

"Blast," said James. "There goes my last quill." They were out in the cloisters, taking advantage of the end of a particularly golden October and snacking on the chocolate cake (and custard, for Peter who liked it) that James had liberated from the kitchens. The stationary necessities such as quills, inks, and parchment, had been liberated from Evans's bag earlier that morning. Since she'd been stupid enough to leave it unguarded in the common room, James had taken the liberty of abstracting some bits as a matter of principle. He held out two inky fingers and swore at length. "Mooney, could you…?"

"Try my bag," said Remus vaguely. He gestured towards the pile of bags and discarded ties and promptly knocked over a bottle of ink. "Oh, flippin' heck. I'm sorry, James." Ink had spilled over the rough ground, over James, and over Remus.

"Oooh," Peter said, and began mopping up ink, careful to keep it away from the various compositions pinned down by rocks.

"Here, let me help," added James. Together, they only managed to spread the stuff further and James scowled. "You'd think it had a mind of its own." A black dribble curled around his fingers and began to sneak under his knees.

"Don't be silly," said Peter, attempting to wipe it up with the edge of his robe. "You can't enchant ink."

"Of course you can," said Remus. "It's easy enough if you're paying attention."

"Cry havoc and let loose the hounds of war!" came Sirius's voice, followed closely by Sirius's body, clambering through a carved cloister window. "_Putain de merde; je m'en fous de ca_. _Eh alors, baissez-moi!_" The other three looked up. He was very wet and holding his arms out at an angle from his body. And he was dripping purple on the ground. Behind him was a trail of purple footsteps and there was purple smeared liberally on the cloister window in which he was perched.

"I. Um. Wow," said James, blankly. "What happened?"

"I was unfairly ambushed," Sirius growled, "by what appeared to be Lily Evans, Stazzi Starett, Sophie Fairfax, Gwen Lennox, and Rilly sodding Fitzgerald. "

"Wait, wait, wait; you were ambushed by _Sophronisbe Fairfax_? As in, like, the quiet one who lives with Evans and Fitz?" said Peter. He whistled. "_And_ Lennox? What did you _do_?"

"I have no idea!" Sirius howled.

"It would have to be pretty serious," Peter pointed out with a patronizing note in his voice. "You'd remember, else."

"Now that," said Remus, grinning, "is some _serious_ purple."

"Mooney, I warned you!" Sirius dived forward and cannoned into Remus, knocking him backwards. They grappled on the stone floor as James and Peter watched, amused. A group of girls came around the corner, laughing.

They stopped and watched. "So it _is_ true what they say about Black and Lupin," said Fitz, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Nice to have confirmation," said Lily.

Remus muttered something, kicked, and was still.

Sirius stopped and looked up. The purple suited him better than it should of, though it did give the impression of looking at him through a pair of coloured spectacles. "Oi, watch it, you."

"We are," said Stazzi cheerfully. "Very good show too. Don't let us bother you, if you're in the mood."

"Starett!" Sirius snapped. "That's well out of line."

"Oh, but _we_ don't mind," said Sophie Fairfax guilelessly. "We'll support you, no matter what your personal preferences are."

"See," said an aggrieved Sirius to the world at large, "I _told_ you she was in on it."

Remus moved again, then said, with a sigh, "Sirius, mate, if you don't want them to think we're having a quiet shag here, you might want to get _off_ me."

"Quiet was hardly the word I had in mind," said Fitz.

Sirius rolled over and got a look them both, now purple and ink-stained. "Oh, bugger me," he said, dropping his head back on the floor.

"Well, yes," said Fitz, "that's rather the point." Remus said at the same time, "No thanks, mate."

"What the _hell_?" Peter's voice rose in outrage. "Evans! Lennox! I've been working on that for absolute _ever_!"

"I didn't do anything!" Lily said in tones of affronted innocence. Gwen Lennox, kneeling by the pool, raised one cool eyebrow and said nothing.

The pool of ink had miraculously spread to cover the parchment, including Peter's Charms essay and several other bits of writing that looked important. The ties were long gone, floating in a small pool of ink. Lennox, with a slight mouth twitch that might have been a grin, leaned over and placed a paper boat on the water.

"Oh, Evans…" began James. "We're going to be up all night finishing that lot now. And the ties are past repair."

"But I didn't do it," Lily repeated. Her bottom lip quivered and her large eyes did look on the verge of tears. "I wouldn't interfere with your _schoolwork_!"

"Oh, no." James pushed the hair out of his face and it stood up. The four boys, ink-stained and purple-streaked, looked at the girls. "I'm sorry, Evans."

"You damn well should be," she said, and gulped.

He put out both hands. "Look, can I make it up to you?"

"Don't touch me," she snapped. James looked hurt. "You're a bit inky," she explained. Her face quivered again and she said, "Err. Sorry. It's just – um, well, we've all been a bit stressy. Maybe – maybe –" she looked like she was going to cry and finally said, pathetically, "Would you return the toilets?"

James shrugged. "Oh, is _that_ all? O'course." Sophie giggled and James spun around to see Fitz grinning broadly whilst his three friends stared at him with assorted looks of horror.

"Well _done_, mate!" said Sirius bitterly.

He turned back to Lily. She laughed. She actually _laughed_. "So you _did_ do the toilets. I knew it!"

"Yes, rather. Confession extracted under unfair circumstances, but yes. And you did enchant this small flood of ink?"

"Um, no actually. That was Gwen. But, I mean, did you _really_ think I would leave my bag unattended by accident? Credit me with brains, at least!"

"Blast," he said. "You're a good actress. Can you really cry on command?"

One lone tear crept down her cheek and James reached over to brush it away. She slapped at his hand – "oh, no you _don't_ – and tried to pull back, but his other inky hand had come up to grab her hair. "Fair's fair, Evans. And I bet it doesn't wash out either."

"I'm a Prefect!" Lily yelled, struggling. "You can't manhandle me, James Potter! I'll – I'll report you! You'll have detention cleaning all the blackboards with a _toothbrush_ by the time I'm through with you!"

"And I'll report _you_," he said, wiping one hand along the ink stains on his robes and planting a perfect handprint on her left cheek. "And you'll be in even _more_ trouble. McGonagall's not going to want her Prefects in trouble again, is she?"

They were very close, glaring at each other. "Ohhh, _you_…" said Lily.

There was the sound of someone's hand connecting with someone else's face, then someone else cursing. In French. Fitz must have tried to come to her friend's aid and been restrained by Sirius. Something heavy crashed into James's back and there was more yelling. Lily kicked him. He pushed her. She tried to punch him and only half-way succeeded, which still hurt. How the hell had she learned fight like that? She only had a sister, didn't she? Someone poured something sticky over James's head and when he pushed – oh no, it wasn't the custard, was it? – out of his eyes he saw a gooey Sophronisbe Fairfax grinning at him. He was up at that, diving at her and leaving Evans to her own devices. "Merlin," he gasped. "I used to think you were _nice_, Sophie." She hit him with the custard bowl and he grabbed it and threw it at the rolling set of robes that was Fitz and Peter and the ink-puddle.

Meanwhile Lily had gotten hold of Remus and they were throwing handfuls of cake, too breathless to jinx one another. Stazzi looked at Gwen, and for a moment the two girls shared the same thought. _Shall we? You stop being aloof and I'll stop being a know-it-all and we'll have a thoroughly good time. _ Then they dived into the fray and indulged in the pure joy of being able to pull hair and robes and grind a disturbing mixture of cake and custard and ink-mud and dirt into other people's hair. The girls had the advantage in numbers, but the boys were devious and used to skirmishes.

Eventually, when everybody was inky, purple, bruised, covered in custard and chocolate pudding, and jinxed, they stopped out of common agreement. They stumbled off the battlefield, James leaning on Peter's shoulder and Stazzi carried between Lily and Sophie. Fitz and Sirius were still yelling at each other, and it required Remus and Gwen, respectively, to grab them. The next morning, when all the sixth year Gryffindors faced questions about why they were covered in ink and purple patches, everyone had a different answer. As to why the Slytherin and Ravenclaw prefects should be so decorated, theories were rife.

Lily, flushed under her handprint of indelible ink, went around silently, her lips pressed together and leaning against convenient walls. Sirius "Purple" (Remus's nickname had stuck, much to Sirius's annoyance) had obviously decided that hitting Evans with a severe Jelly-Legs Curse was worth getting out of bed for. She was still recovering from it.

On the bright side, the toilets came back the next morning. The Marauders stayed in bed that day by general consensus. "No," said James mildly when his alarm went off that morning. He'd gone to bed half an hour previously. "No; I was up all night doing that bloody prep again, and last night bringing back their precious toilets. That's quite enough of that."

"I 'gree," said Peter fuzzily, and put the pillow over his head.

"Bugger this for a game of soldiers," said Remus emphatically and, while James and Peter digested the fact that _Remus_ was _swearing_, curled up and went back to sleep.

"Mmmmph," said Sirius, and rolled over.

---

Lily Evans was feeling vengeful. She lay on her bed, hands clasped behind her head, thinking angry thoughts. She was ink-stained for at least another week if her charm had gone right (which it seemed to – Madam Pomfrey didn't have _anything_ she could use), and she still couldn't walk properly. And that bloody _cow_ Portsmouth-Cunningham had had the nerve to bring it up in the Prefects' meeting today. She'd had a go at Remus too, but her comments to Lily had been worse.

Lily's normal style would have involved running down James, jumping on him, and yelling a lot, but she knew from the last few days that this method probably wouldn't work. No, the way to beat James Potter was…she considered her five and a half years of Potter-hatred and realized that the answer was, in fact, beautifully simple. The way to beat James Potter was…to _think_ like the bastard. She focused on her canopy, tracing the familiar embroidery lines with her eyes. _What would James Potter do?_

---

"Look, Sophie," said Lily, dragging her friend aside. "Here's a map with the loos marked; I want you to plant these in all the boys' toilets I circled, yeah."

"Lily – " began Sophie.

"Please, just trust me on this. It'll make up for the purple."

Sophie grinned. "You know, I actually don't mind it as much as I did."

Typical, thought Lily, careening away to her next agent. "Fitz, here. You know how it's supposed to work."

"Oh, brill. They're going to hate this!"

"Heya, Gwen, can I ask a favour?"

"Bishop! Fancy doing some mischief?"

"So, O'Dwyer – you know about the loos, right?" (Nuala O'Dwyer had nodded. And nodded again as Lily explained her plan in very short, easy-to-understand words. She hoped she'd gotten through; you could never tell with O'Dwyer.)

"Oi, Evans," said Potter, jogging her elbow as he passed her in the hall. The Jelly-legs curse was still wearing off, and she stumbled. Into Potter. "What do you have in the basket?"

"Don't 'oi' me, Potter," she snapped. "And it's none of your business."

"Aww, you've swept the girl off her feet," said Black, appearing solicitously at her other elbow. "Go easy on the ladies, Potter." Both of them caught her arms, dragging her to the corner. Oh no. They were _not_ going to get into this basket. Not yet.

"Go easy on the after-shave, Black," said Lily, coughing. "You think Fabio le Beau's new line is going to make up for the fact you're purple? What's it called again – 'Animal Musk'?"

Both of them let go of her, Black in horror, Potter in ill-concealed amusement. "You wear le Beau cologne? I know you're sometimes, um, fragrant, but I didn't know it was because…"

"Get dead," said Black, sounding utterly mortified. Lily slid between two goggling second-years and ran.

By the end of the day, she was exhausted. But she hoped she'd done it right. She'd certainly tracked down all the girl Prefects bar Portsmouth-bloody-Cunningham and the other two Slytherins. Oddly enough, everybody wanted to help. Lying, once again, under her canopy, it occurred to Lily Evans that thinking like James Potter had its benefits. _The divine thrill in us that comes from being truly villainous…_

---

James Potter wandered into the Prefects' bathroom and turned on the tap full blast. Telling Remus a password meant everybody found it out sooner or later and James used the Prefects' bathroom as though he were allowed to. No one would care. He caught a glimpse of a rueful, ink-splatted face in the mirror and sighed. _Lovely_. He stripped his nightshirt and slid down into the bathtub, sinking in bubbles. It was only when he got out that he noticed the smell. He paused in the process of drying his hair. It smelled like – it smelled like – what was that? Some kind of flower, maybe? Very strong; like perfume, really. The kind his grandmother wore – strongly floral without being quite identifiable as any flower in particular. He lifted his arm and sniffed. Yes, it was him, although he'd be damned if he knew why he smelled like he'd suddenly been doused in granny perfume. He tried the various interestingly-scented lotions they kept in the bathroom, but nothing cut the stench of slightly stale flowers. His first thought – irrational, perhaps, but probably true – was that Lily Evans was responsible. He didn't know how, but he was willing to bet a small fortune that she had _somehow_ gotten into the toilets and planted some kind of smelly charm in all of them. He how she'd done it, and decided he didn't care.

He entered the tower quietly and saw Remus, alert and dressed, rifling through the bottles on Sirius's dresser. "What are you looking for?" said James.

Remus turned, blushed, and said, "He's got some cologne somewhere, hasn't he? He reeked to high Heaven yesterday. And there's something wrong with the bathrooms and I thought it might – Oh, you too, I guess?"

James was aware of a smell similar to his own coming from Remus. "Yeah," he said shortly. "Somehow I don't think even Sirius's beauty aids are going to cover up this – this –"

"_Eau de Veuve_," said Sirius in a tragic voice, coming into the room. Peter hovered behind him. "Little Old Lady Perfume." He sat down on his bed and put his head in violet hands.

"What are we going to _do_?" Peter moaned.

Remus spritzed the cologne experimentally. It clashed with the _eau de veuve_ and created slightly worrying mental images. He sighed. "Put our heads up, strut like Sirius, and pretend like it's on purpose."

"Right," said James.

"What could possibly go wrong?" said Sirius.

"I hope that was a rhetorical question," muttered Peter as he shut the door to the tower behind him.

The day was absolute murder, and by the end – "I'm almost ready to buy a pensive with my pocket money, just to get the last nine hours out of my head," said Peter. They were back in their tower again.

"Don't waste your money," said Sirius, lifting the pillow that was flopped over his head. "They've got professionals who can do it for you in counseling now. Merlin, that was painful." He dropped the pillow again and said, in a muffled but theatrical voice, "Reputation, reputation, reputation! Oh, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial."

"It already was, Dogstar," said Remus mildly. "Get a grip."

"Easy for you to say," muttered Sirius. "_You're_ not purple!"

James, who had been thinking, stood up suddenly. "Right, lads, I know what we're going to do. We're going to find that bloody revolting little _tart_ Lily Evans and…"

Peter looked up, Sirius removed the pillow from his face, and Remus blinked. Fascination warred with curiosity and alarm in their faces. None of them could have imagined circumstances which would involve James calling Lily a tart. Until today, it had been unthinkable. "And…" breathed Peter.

James sighed, holding out both hands. "And apologize to her."

"_What_?"

"You gamble, Sirius," said James. "There comes a time when you have to cash in the chips."

They found Evans, Fitz, and Fairfax in the common room, working. At the invading smell of _eau de veuve_, the girls looked up. The boys advanced in a diamond shape, James in front with a white flag. They stopped. James looked at the three girls, fixed his eyes on Lily, and said, "Make it go away?"

"You deserve it," said Fitz.

"But you smell so _nice_," said Sophie.

"All right." Lily reached into her bag and pulled out two bottles. "Say you're sorry."

"For what?" James snapped.

"_Say it_."

James gritted his teeth. "I'm sorry." Then added, "I can't imagine how, but I hope you're happy. Right. Now."

Lily smiled brilliantly. "Not the most graceful apology, but it'll do." She held out both hands. "Who's smart?" No answer. "I was afraid of that. All right. Pick a hand." James looked at the two bottles. One was a little white one with a red dragon twisting around the tinted bottle and squirting flame out towards the cork. The other bottle was black and had a sort of bowl thing with some kind of stirrer inlaid in metal on the front.

He scowled at her. "What are you going to do? Poison us?"

Lily grinned. "Maybe."

"Well, I have no idea which one to pick."

Behind him, Remus began to laugh softly, then rather louder. He leaned around James and caught Lily's eyes. "The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon and the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true," he quoted in a sing-song voice. "It's the black bottle, James. Get it?"

"Got it," said James.

"Good," said Remus. "Let's have it then, Miss Evans." Very slowly, she nodded.

"What is going on?" said James blankly.

"Remus watches old movies," said Lily. "I forgot about that." She handed James the black bottle. "That should help."

There was a slight pause. Then James said, reluctantly, "Thanks." He took a gulp and passed the bottle back to Remus. The smell became considerably less.

And Lily said, even more reluctantly, "You're welcome. And, um, we're sorry too." Sophie and Fitz nodded.

"You are?"

She looked away for a moment, a drift of red hair obscuring the hand print on her cheek. "Yeah." She looked back up. "Just don't do it again, right?"

"No promises," said James.

"I'll be ready for you," said Lily.

"Yes," said James. "Yes, I can see that."

They stared at each other for a moment of nervous silence. Then James burst out, "Want to meet up for lunch in Hogsmeade sometime?"

Lily tossed her hair back and glared. "In. Your. D_ream_s. Mate."

"You'll be sorry," he said, winked, and turned his back on her to go upstairs again with what remained of his dignity. At least things seemed to be back on their old footing.


End file.
